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Making sense of reality is easy for most people
thanks to the way our brains evolved. But
computers can easily become swamped in the
sea of sensory input that we take for granted.
Our skill boils down to seeing less than what
we're looking at. Two teams of researchers
are trying to capture in software our uncanny
ability to realize that it's still Aunt Grace
when she turns her head.
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Ribbons
expand nanotech toolbox
Add nanoscale ribbons to the tiny toolkit of Buckyballs,
nanotubes and nanowires. The flat fibers are transparent
and semiconducting, making them handy for optics
and electronics.
Silicon
cages metal atoms
Wrap individual metal atoms in silicon and you have
a new material for making computer chips. These
caged atoms could also be just the ticket for researchers
trying to make quantum computers.
Surfaces
channel liquids
Make a hydrophilic path on a hydrophobic surface and guess where water will flow. Make the right kind of sandwich and you don't need to bother making tiny pipes for those bio chips.
Chip
impurities make quantum bits
All semiconductor chips contain a few unwanted atoms. But what looks like impurities to some look like budding quantum computers to others.
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